Doug Bradley
Scare-A-Con (2019 Review)- House Of Tortured Souls
On Sunday October 20th I took an hour drive to Rochester, NY with my friend and 6 year old niece to our first Scare-A-Con experience. I have attended many cons in various states, however this was my first time attending one closer to home and my first time attending Scare-A-Con.
Let me start off by saying how simple it was getting there and finding parking. There was no hassle or confusion. Upon arriving, the staff was very friendly with showing us where we had to go to get checked in, there was no confusion in finding anything—- there were schedules on the walls which showed where each panel was to be held at their scheduled times. There were 2 big rooms, one with the vendors and one with the celebrity guests. It was nice and organized.
Upon arriving, we walked around the room where all celebrity guests would be, and I stumbled upon the lovely Loren Molloy. She’s a super woman who does it all— actor, producer, director and author. Currently worked on the upcoming movie Yield. She has such a radiant personality and was very generous in signing one her children’s books for my niece.
We then made our way over to the one and only Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp). It’s always pleasure seeing her at cons. She gained a small fan that day, my niece who charmed her way into sitting with Felissa at her table.
Also had the pleasure of meeting Barbara Crampton (Re–Animator, Puppet Master) and Jonathan Tiersten (Sleepaway Camp). The kindness that they showed their fans is unbelievable, even making it such a pleasant experience for all but mainly how they took on to my niece. I know it’s a day that she will never forget.
Even though it was small and wasn’t a huge turnout on Sunday, everything was well planned and organized and the celebrity line up was pretty good. I will definitely find myself at another Scare-A-Con in the future.
Monster Interviews: Nicholas Vince – Pride Month
- DS: When did you realize you wanted to be an actor and entertainer? What engaged your interest and led you down the path of your esteemed career?
- NV: Very early on. I took part in plays when I was at primary school. When I was 11 my English teacher, invited me to join the local amateur drama society, who were putting on evening excerpts from the books of Charles Dickens. I played all the small boys, such as Pip from Great Expectations.
- I think what engaged my interest, was that I could use my imagination and, like all kids, I just enjoyed playing at make-believe.
- DS: How did you become involved in the independent horror film industry? What initially drew you to horror and what’s caused you to stay?
- NV: The first books I read from our local library when I was seven or eight years old, were the Greeks myths, which involved gods and monsters. After that, I graduated to ghost stories. Then in my mid-teens, I watched the Universal horror movies, late at night on the television. I loved the fact that except for Dracula, the “monsters,” were the good guys. Frankenstein’s Creature was a victim who was only looking for love.
- My first independent film was, of course, Hellraiser. I got involved with that because I’d known Clive Barker for around three years and he asked me. More recently, I have met independent filmmakers at film conventions, such as London’s FrightFest, and they invited me to be part of their projects.
- DS: You’ve garnered many fandoms from your portrayal as the Chattering Cenobite in Clive Barker’s 1987 film, Hellraiser. What’s it like being the Chatterer and working with Clive and Doug? Do you enjoy the recognition that comes with that role, or is it a bit much at times?
- NV: It was a problematic costume and made up to work in because it was so restrictive. I couldn’t hear speak or see; which dictated the stillness of performance. Initially, Clive and I had discussed the idea that I’d be leaping around the set, like a chattering monkey. However, the design of the makeup and costume were so durable that I didn’t need to do much to make the Chatterer terrifying.
- Working with Clive and Doug, and the rest of the casting crew, was a massive amount of the fun. I laughed so much in the green room; the sound engineer threatened to do me harm as my laughter could be heard on set and was ruining takes.
- DS: What are your thoughts on the news of the Hellraiser reboot, which was once rumored to be done by Clive Barker, but is now said to be in the hands of writer and producer Steven S. Goyer?
- NV: I think that the most critical element is that Clive Barker should be involved. Along with Doug as Pinhead. Clive created a vast world which many writers and artists, outside the films, have contributed new stories. I’m thinking of the Hellraiser comics and the collection of short stories Hellbound Hearts, edited by Paul Kane and Marie O’Regan. So, I believe there is a vast scope for Mr. Goyer to do something incredible and exciting, mainly if Clive Barker is at the heart of it.
- DS: Genre fans might not know this, but you acted in only three horror films from 87′ to 90‘, before a twenty-year hiatus. You’ve only recently resurfaced over the last decade. What’s the reason behind your current resurgence?
- NV: After we made Nightbreed, I decided to give up acting and concentrate on writing comics. As well as contributing stories to the Hellraiser and Nightbreed comics, I also wrote weekly and monthly comics for Marvel UK. Then three of those projects were canceled within a month of each other, and I found myself having to earn a living, and I ended up working in computers. Also, then, in 2012, I had a chance to leave that and return to writing and acting.
- DS: As we celebrate Pride month in the States, what does it mean to you, and how important is it to have the LBGT community represented in the horror genre?
- NV: As a gay man, I think it’s hugely important. It’s great to see so many LGBT characters represented in modern horror films and TV series; not just as “the pansy” who gets killed in the first reel’ or the ‘trans homicidal maniac.‘ Another favorite movie of mine is Hellbent (dir. Paul Etheredge), which is a stalk and slash film set in West Hollywood at Halloween.
- Over the years, many people from the community have mentioned to me they found comfort in the film Nightbreed. Many of us were made to feel we were monstrous as we were LGBT, and Nightbreed is a film which celebrates the monsters and shows the real villains are the ‘normal’ people.
- DS: Being your career has spanned nearly four decades, do you still find and take pleasure in the art, and what have you found most fulfilling about acting?
- NV: I do still enjoy acting, as it’s always different. In the last year, I’ve played a father, a guy at a gym, a bartender and a “monster without makeup” – to quote the director when he offered me the part. What do I find most fulfilling? I like how acting is really about studying humanity. It’s about walking in another person’s shoes. Also, that, I think, helps broaden my understanding of other people. That’s one of the reasons why I think it’s always good for children to have drama lessons. Not only can the experiences help increase confidence, but they can also teach them to think of another person’s viewpoint.
- DS: You wear a ton of hats such as Actor, Writer, Producer, Director, Author, and more. Which is your personal favorite, and which do you find most gratifying and rewarding?
- NV: I wish, at times, that I did have a favorite as it would make life an awful lot more manageable. Moreover, later this year, the plan is to add Artist more fully to that list. However, the truth is, I enjoy all of them when they’re going well, and I wish I were doing one of the others when I’m struggling with something.
- DS: Do you have any special upcoming projects that you’d like to let your followers know? Any future content that you’d like to share with your fans?
- NV: I’m working on a couple of things which I’ll be able to talk about later this year.In the meantime, the feature film, Book of Monsters (dir. Stewart Sparke), in which I play the heroine’s father, was recently released by Epic Pictures and I feature in a few other films due to be hitting festivals or release later this year, For We Are Many (Hex Studios), Borley Rectory (dir. Ashley Thorpe), Heckle (dir. Martyn Pick), The Offer (dir. Chris Griffiths and Gary Smart) which is available on Amazon Prime and Fuck You Immortality (Federico Scargiali) and a couple more currently in production.
- DS: Where can people follow you and stay up to date with what you’re doing? Are there any social media platforms you’re on more regularly than others?
- NV: I’m most often on Facebook and Twitter but the most accessible way to track projects I’m working on, watch my short films and where I’ll be making appearances is on my website, nicholasvince.com, where people can also check out my store.
- DS: As a formality, we have a final question we like to ask all of our guests. If you could pick one and only one, which would you say is your all-time favorite horror film?
- NV: That has to be ‘The Masque of the Red Death,’ based on a couple of Edgar Allen Poe stories. It starred Vincent Price and was directed by Roger Corman. It’s a weird film with some great set pieces and asks some important moral questions about the role of God in the world’s suffering.
HELLABRATION DELUXE! Thirty-One Days of SHOCKTOBER: Intro And Day One – 10/01/18
As long as there have been movies, and as long as there have been Halloweens, Hollywood and the independent denizens who scrape and scrounge outside of the system, have been more than happy to exploit the holiday, by presenting crowd-pleasing, creepy creations of the killing kind. The offerings have been as diverse and diabolical as anything the human mind has been capable of whipping up, and for this particular occasion, HOUSE OF TORTURED SOULS – and Yours Cruelly – have devised a diversion of devilish delights just for you, dear readers!
Starting today, and for the days to come, we dug back into the dusty archives, going back THIRTY-ONE YEARS, and will be presenting to you, reviews of films that served as “fright fulfillment” for the spookiest night of each.
Hopefully, no one’s going to feel insulted or that I’m being condescending, but I’m going to talk about each one of these as if none of you readers have ever seen or heard of these before and at thirty-one years and counting, believe it – there are quite a few of you who have not.
I’ve relied on IMDb.com for the suggestions here, but I made each selection in terms of what film I found meant THE MOST to me for that year. That will make it easier, even though some time periods made it a lot harder to choose than others!
10/01 – 1987: HELLRAISER
In a year that was literally ‘an embarrassment of riches’ for die-hard horror fans, which saw the release of EVIL DEAD 2, THE LOST BOYS, THE HIDDEN, ANGEL HEART, NEAR DARK and PREDATOR, choosing the best film would seem like a daunting and impossible task. Filmmakers were transcending boundaries, going deeper into imaginative scenarios. There seemed to be no limit to what could be done to refresh what audiences recognized as the “tried-and-true” stories that were quickly becoming established horror tropes, but it was writer/actor/artist/poet CLIVE BARKER, who struck out to give fans something totally new: a vision of horror not seen before in any previous effort. But HELLRAISER would certainly become highly influential for many, many years to come.
So here’s the skinny on HELLRAISER in a nutshell…think of it as a more arty, intimate version of THE GATES OF HELL, THE DEVIL’S RAIN or THE BEYOND. Based on the Barker novella, “The Hellbound Heart,” it’s the heart-freezing story of the Cotton family: stepmonster Julia (CLARE HIGGINS), husband Larry (ANDREW ROBINSON) and daughter Kirsty (ASHLEY LAURENCE) and the house they’ve just moved into.
Nobody knows that Julia was seeing Larry’s brother, Frank (SEAN CHAPMAN) on the side, but that would be the least of their worries even if they did know. Frank was into some pretty intense, weird occult shit, which included a certain ornate Chinese puzzle box, that once solved, opens the doors to Hell and summons a group of demonic entities known as the Cenobites – devotees of a brand of eternal torture and suffering undreamt of by mortal men…well, most of them.
In any case, Frank didn’t just solve the damn thing, but he did it in this very house. And now, having suffered a fate worse than death, he’s looking for a way – any way – to escape.
Enter Julia. She loves (well, actually more lusts after) the disappeared Frank as much as she loathes mealy-mouthed Larry, but that’s not the point. The point would be that there’s not a lot that she wouldn’t do to have her lover back, as she discovers when a drop of blood on the floor of the room where Frank was taken, begins to bring him back to earthly life (and the special effects are something you’ve got to see to believe, courtesy of a crack English FX team,
lead by legends BOB KEEN and GEOFF PORTASS).
Things begin to get really complicated, when Kirsty stumbles over what they’re up to, and she decides to strike her own deal with the satanic emissaries, to stop Julia and hopefully save her father. The rest of the movie is devoted to revealing whether or not she’s successful. Not saying this is a spoiler, people, but there are about a half-dozen HELLRAISER sequels now at the very least, so you can pretty much figure out the answer to that one.
Up to that time, no one had seen anything like HELLRAISER, and it would raise the bar for so many horror films to come, not just in the occult sub-category of horror, but horror in general. Barker really let his art school roots show with this one, as the creature designs, the amazing, atmospheric photography by ROBIN VIDGEON, and CHRISTOPHER YOUNG’S dark, chilling score combined to complete a vision that could only belong to him, and was introduced by the cult favorite “Books Of Blood” (also destined to provide some other film adaptations, none of them as much of a hallmark as this.)
The unforgettable roles portrayed by acting vets Robinson, Higgins and Chapman and the then-‘unknown’ Laurence made a lasting impression upon the young minds of blossoming horror fans and seasoned horrorphiles alike, but it was DOUG BRADLEY, BARBIE WILDE, NICHOLAS BURMAN-VINCE and SIMON BAMFORD, once relative unknowns to mainstream moviegoing audiences, who all became household names as the “angels to some, demons to others”, the S&M-by-way-of-Bosch infused Cenobites – a mouth-watering future challenge to cosplayers everywhere.
SyFy Announces Clive Barker’s Nightbreed TV Series
Cabal, Clive Barker’s 1988 novella about a man’s struggle with self-demons and ultimate attempt to find the mythical(?) sanctuary city of Midian, is being brought to TV by SyFy, Morgan Creek Entertainment (Nightbreed (1990) directed by David Cronenberg), Universal Cable Prods, and writer Josh Stolberg,
SyFy’s Nightbreed will explore race relations in the US using the human-monster dichotomy displayed throughout the novella. The story will follow a group of subterranean monster-humans forced to find another place to live after their home is destroyed.
Before I continue, I want to talk a bit about the movie Nightbreed, which gets some criticism, but should it? For me, I had a difficult time relating to the protagonist because of the casting choice and likewise his girlfriend. However, every other performance blew me away. I have mixed feelings. It’s nothing against either of the actors; they just didn’t click with me. Watch and decide for yourself.
Horror TV series are popular right now, The Walking Dead is still going in spite of the departure of Andrew Lincoln, Ash vs Evil Dead was doing well but not well enough for Starz, I (okay, borderline horror for the younger set) seems popular, Supernatural still pushing it on Netflix, and scores more. But, people are dropping cable packages to watch online. What does this say for the possibility of a win with this one?
From to the names attached, we can be cautiously hopeful. David Robinson, President of Morgan Creek Entertainment Group, seems quite optimistic:
Maybe we can be a little more than cautiously optimistic. Star Trek managed to address these issues with a great deal of success.
Keep your claws crossed. I am.